Logic, time and money: some MindManager formula surprises (Part 1)

Posted on 28 March, 2021 by Alex

A lot has happened since my last post in May 2020, starting of course with the huge and continuing world-wide impact of COVID. Back in April last year I wrote an article for the MindManager blog with advice of non-government organisations (NGOs) on managing the impacts of the virus. I had no idea back then that in many countries these effects will last well into 2021, and beyond.

The release of MindManager 2021 in September 2020 was a welcome diversion, bringing a suite of new features, including topic info cards, accelerator keys, flowchart extensions and an enhanced MindManager Snap feature. Among the major changes was a major redesign of Word import and export and a completely new approach to slides, which I’ll come back to in future posts.

I also want to mark the sudden demise of the old MindManager Community Forum late last year. The forum was a great example of peer support, with experienced users volunteering their knowledge in response to thousands of questions from the wider MM community. Late last year the third-party providers of the forum software abruptly discontinued the service, which meant that all this information was lost.

I’m pleased MindManager has responded by starting a new forum, though I still miss the content of the old one – and at the moment I’m trying to recover some of it. More on that in the future, but one of the early questions on the new forum was about MM formulas and specifically whether it was possible to use them to make Time Value of Money (TVM) calculations.

Playing around with the MM’s seemingly modest formulas facility I discovered to my surprise that it is indeed quite capable of handling TVM equations. In addition, I stumbled across some significant but undocumented features which make formulas much more capable than they initially seem.

This two-part series is based on my response on the forum to this question and my additional research on formulas. My thanks to Jan Heger from MindManager who confirmed what I found and whose comments on the forum filled in some important gaps. In this first part I’ll look at TVM calculations and exponentiation. Continue reading →

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Search all files in MindManager – with a little help from Windows

Posted on 25 May, 2020 by Alex

A recent question on the MindManager (MM) forum got me thinking about MindManager’s search capabilities. These are reasonably comprehensive when it comes to searching MM’s own files, with the ability to search topic text, notes, properties and a variety of other fields, as well as by file name.

Depending on what field you choose, MM will list not only the matching files but also the relevant topics. And, as you’d expect from a mind mapping program, MM provides various ways to incorporate search results directly into maps.

Outside of MM’s own files, however, the situation is very different. MM does have the capacity to incorporate all the files in a particular folder (or folders only, or a combination of files and folders) using File Explorer Map Parts, but this is an all-or-nothing feature with no search capability built into it.

The original question on the forum was asking whether MM’s tags could somehow be linked to tags or bookmarks in Adobe PDFs. The short answer is no, but I started to look at alternatives. I’ve found a couple of options – the first is specifically focused on PDFs, while the second, which involves the use of Windows File Explorer, provides universal searching across all file types.

These options require a reasonable level of experience in using MindManager. Readers are advised to trial these techniques extensively before attempting to use them on important or sensitive material.

Example of a Windows File Explorer search and results in a MindManager map. The search is stored in an external file which has been linked using a MindManager File Explorer Map Part

Continue reading →

Posted in Import, Mind Mapping, MM2019, Project Management, Research and Writing, Viewing, Filtering and Formatting | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

COVID-19 and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs)

Posted on 20 April, 2020 by Alex

As most readers would be aware I normally use this blog to write about aspects of MindManager (MM) software such as key features of the latest version, or to explore how you can use these features in unusual ways to accomplish specific tasks. I’m a director of a small company and I’m also involved in several non-profit non-government organisations (NGOs) which manage small projects, so I often have these in mind when I develop ideas for posts on my blog.

These are not normal times, however. As the world responds to COVID-19’s terrible toll, millions of people’s lives have been upended. As countries try to contain the virus, businesses and other organizations have closed, suspended or radically altered their activities.

Almost all community, social and cultural activities have also come to an abrupt halt as social distancing and isolation kicks in. While it’s the cancellations of the big events which have attracted the most attention, thousands of local fetes, markets, concerts, sporting events, performances, exhibitions and other activities put on by small (NGOs) have suffered the same fate.

In collaboration with MindManager I’ve turned what I’ve learnt from working with several NGOs which are going through this process to develop a COVID-19 NGO Pause Strategy which may be helpful to other organisations. This article, which also includes ideas on how to continue some activities online, has just been posted on the MindManager blog: https://www.mindjet.com/blog/2020/04/202004how-non-government-organizations-can-manage-the-impacts-of-covid-19/

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Mind Mapping the World-Wide Web, one page at a time

Posted on 16 October, 2019 by Alex

It’s been a little while since I last updated this blog. I was going to mark my return to regular posting by reviewing some of the new features in the latest MindManager 2020 release, but first I’ve decided to take a small detour to describe some practical things you can do with most Windows versions of MindManager. In doing so I’m drawing on responses I’ve written (on a voluntary basis) to questions on the MindManager Community forum.

In this post I’ll describe a process to turn a list of links on a web page into a MindManager map. These could be lists of links to other pages on the same website, links to products on a commerce website, links to entries in online documentation, or links to references available online.

Why bother doing this when you can simply just hyperlink the page containing the links in a mind map? There are quite a few practical uses, the most obvious of which is to create a framework as a basis to add your own notes and comments, for example if you are conducting online research. This technique can also be used to produce a more concise summary of lengthy webpages with multiple links, especially as you can often edit out the site’s own text descriptions. You can even – with a bit of work – copy and map search engine results.

Finally, you use this approach to take a snapshot of the links on a web page and preserve them at a particular point in time. This advantage does however point to one limitation of this approach; the maps you produce with it are not dynamic. If the web page contents change, you will have to repeat the process to get the latest version.

MindManager and Word – a little secret

Mapping a webpage is surprisingly tricky to do in MindManager. Simply pasting the list in a map results in the links being pasted as the topic names; this looks fairly ugly and is relatively useless as the links are no longer active. You can try going via Excel and using MM2020’s new Excel import facility but this doesn’t seem able to import live links either.

I have developed a workaround, based in part on some of my earlier posts about extending MindManager’s Word import facility. A warning – the process is a bit technical, uses some undocumented aspects of MindManager and requires the use of MS Excel and Word (with the Send to MindManager add-in, which should have installed when you installed MindManager). You will also need a reasonable knowledge of Word, and a basic understanding of Excel.

I’ll demonstrate the process with a very simple example – the list of recent posts on the right-hand side of this blog page, as shown left below – and describe how to turn it into the map on the right.

Continue reading →

Posted in Import, Mind Mapping | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

MindManager Integrations 3: the logic revolution

Posted on 7 May, 2019 by Alex

In the third article in the MindManager integrations series I’ll explore how SmartRules can revolutionise the use of the program through the introduction of functions based on Boolean logic. 

Beefing up MM’s formula facility to include logic statements, most importantly IF-THEN functions like those found in Excel and many other programs, has long been on many people’s wish lists. This would allow users to compare aspects of topics, most obviously the data in topic properties, either with each other or to some other criteria.

The company has answered this request not by adding this feature to formulas but instead via an unusual route; the expansion of the SmartRules facility in MindManager 2019. Despite some shortcomings this is a surprisingly useful approach. 

SmartRules can accept a wide variety of inputs and not just topic properties. They can be nested like functions in Excel and can also combined with MM’s formula facility. And just as there is a range of inputs, there is a wide selection of formatting and other outputs. This makes the SmartRules feature and more specifically its IF-THEN functionality one of the most powerful tools available in MindManager.

The following example map was developed to illustrate of these techniques and is itself a work in progress as I continue to explore this functionality. I’ve hidden most of the “machinery”, including some topics and topic properties as well as the SmartRules and formulas involved, but I’ll come back to these later in the article.

A word of advice – this is a long and very technical read and assumes a reasonable level of experience with MindManager, some understanding of how SmartRules and formulas operate, and, ideally, familiarity with Excel formulas. If you haven’t done so already, it’s also worth having a look at the first article in this series which explains the basics of linking SmartRules and formulas, as well as the second which provided further examples. Continue reading →

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MindManager Integrations 2: Doing more with SmartRules and Formulas

Posted on 2 May, 2019 by Alex

Introduction

This is the second in a series looking at the ways in which new and old features in MindManager 2019 can be combined to produce innovative and exciting ways to manage and present material in mind maps. 

The first post in this series outlined how MM2019’s revamped SmartRules feature can be used to translate tags and icons, including task icons, into topic properties which can then be manipulated using MM’s Formula facility. In this article I’ll explore some additional ways to use these concepts. 

Recap

Previously I covered how to:

  1. Set up numeric topic properties to match tags or icons;
  2. Create SmartRules to link icons or tags to these topic properties;
  3. Use Formulas on the Central Topic to sum the topic properties matching each tag or icon; and
  4. Write SmartRules to highlight if the total for each topic property meets or fails to meet certain criteria.

 These techniques provide the basis for some of the more complex examples discussed in this post, so it’s probably best to look at part 1 if you haven’t done so already. 

Counting multiple tags

In part 1 I used a simple example of counting of mutually exclusive Kanban tags The same approach can be used to count multiple tags in the same group without the mutually exclusive option, as shown in the following example. 

Continue reading →

Posted in Mind Mapping, Project Management | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sociamind MindManager Article Map Updated

Posted on 5 April, 2019 by Alex

The mind map of MindManager posts on the Sociamind blog has been updated and revamped to make it easier to find articles.

Click on this link, the map below or the MindManager Articles item on the blog menu to go to the map, which shows selected posts relating to MindManager published over the past five years. The three most recent articles are now highlighted in red.

Around 50 articles are grouped by theme in the map. The hyperlink icon next to any topic provides access to the relevant post. The earliest MindManager version applicable to each article or group of articles is shown in brackets. Articles which discuss several key MindManager features may appear in the map more than once.

Continue reading →

Posted in Mind Mapping, MM2019, New Version Overviews, Project Management, Research and Writing, Uncategorized, Viewing, Filtering and Formatting | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

MindManager Integrations 1: Tags and Icons to Topic Properties – the Basics

Posted on 4 April, 2019 by Alex

One especially useful feature of the current version of MindManager (MM2019) is the way in which the program’s latest features can work with each other as well as with MM’s more established features to produce new ways of seeing, managing, and presenting material in mind maps. In this series I will look at some of these integrations, starting with how the revamped SmartRules feature can be used to translate tags and icons, including task icons, into topic properties which can then be used with MM’s Formula facility.

What can I do with this?

The primary purpose of this integration is to provide a dynamic count at the central or parent topic level of specific tags or icons in the relevant descendant sub-topics. MM has long had the facility to count tags and icons in the Marker Index, but these are global counts across either the whole or filtered map and aren’t easily accessible within the map itself. Sometimes it’s more useful to show the total count directly in the map, especially if you can show it on a branch-by-branch basis.

The ability to count tags and icons with a map also opens up a range of other possibilities. These counts can be used in other formulas or to apply specific tags or formatting to the parent topic; for example, you can use this approach to apply and then count tags for specific defects in a project, or each time a particular comment is made in a survey at the sub-topic level.

Alternatively, a special tag could be added to the parent topic depending on the result, or it could be specially formatted to highlight key issues. This facility can even be used as a basis for constructing Boolean If-Then-Else statements which currently are not available in formulas. I’ll explore some variations on this approach and other potential uses in later articles.

What is involved?

The process is reasonably straightforward, providing you have a basic understanding of MM2019’s Topic Properties, SmartRules and Formulas – and of course, tags and icons. If you haven’t used these features before try to have a little play with them first. In this example I’m using the default Kanban “To Do”, “Doing” and “Done” tag group but you could use any tag group or icon set.

Basic Kanban Tags to Properties Example

It’s probably best to start with a group containing a limited number of tags or icons set to mutually exclusive, though you can use more complex groups and ones which are not constrained this way (though there are some issues which I’ll cover later). I’m also using a simple map and adding the count totals to the central topic, but the same approach can be used to show the totals for each branch at the parent topic level.

Continue reading →

Posted in MM2019, Viewing, Filtering and Formatting | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Want help with mind mapping and using MindManager in your organisation?

Posted on 14 February, 2019 by Alex

As well as publishing the Sociamind blog which explores the many features and uses of mind mapping, Gooding Davies Consultancy (GDC) offers a range of consultancy services relating to mind mapping and in particular MindManager. Based near Sydney, GDC can provide assistance either online or in person (Greater Sydney metropolitan area, and other regions by arrangement).

Alex Gooding and Fiona Davies, the principals of GDC, have been using MindManager for over a decade. Alex is also a frequent contributor to the Mindjet Customer Community Forum, where with nearly 900 responses to queries by other users he has obtained “Champion” status. In addition to their mind mapping expertise, Alex and Fiona have extensive experience in research, strategic planning, project management and organisation development in both the public and private sectors.

If you would like professional advice on how mind mapping could help your organisation, have a general query about mind mapping programs or need training on the use of MindManager software – or if you want to find out more about our other professional services, please contact us.

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What’s new in MindManager 2019 1: SmartRules outsmart Power Filters – Update

Posted on 29 January, 2019 by Alex

Update: Unfortunately, in compiling and discussing the upgraded aspects of Power Filters and SmartRules in MindManager 2019 I left out one of the most important – the ability of SmartRules to write topic properties. This article which was originally posted in November 2018 and the accompanying table comparing the Power Filters and SmartRules feature sets have both been updated to recognise this. 

This feature is significant not only because it provides a way to write topic properties linked to other features such as tags and icons, but also because this allows MindManager formulas to be applied to these linked properties. In addition, the linking of Smart Rules to topic properties provides an indirect way of manipulating MindManager formulas to create the equivalent of Boolean conditional If-Then-Else statements, a facility lacking in the formulas themselves. I’ll explore these options in a future post.

I noted a year ago in reviewing MindManager 2018 that the range of graphic elements brought to the program since its purchase in 2016 reflected Corel’s design heritage and suggested that there could be more to come.

Corel’s makeover has continued with the release of MindManager 2019, which confirms the direction the company is taking with MindManager, adding graphical features and new ways to present information. I’ll describe some of the additional changes in MM2019 over the next few posts, starting with SmartRules.

SmartRules is a substantial development of Conditional Formatting which was introduced only a year ago in MM2018. The feature wasn’t that new even then – as I noted in my review of MM2018, it was really a reintroduction of the old Power Markers add-in which had largely disappeared when Mindjet acquired it several years earlier. Rebranded as Conditional Formatting, Power Markers was revived with an easy-to-use interface. Continue reading →

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